The Messenger Box Set: Books 1-6

by J. N. Chaney

  “Damn,” he said. “I know you said you expected me to be kind of ordinary, but I wish I wasn’t this ordinary. I feel like I’m letting you down. I am the Messenger, but I’m still growing. Learning. I’m trying to be more than an Archetype pilot, and it’s a learning curve we don’t have time for. I swear I’ll make it, though, even if all of this feels rather random at times.”

  That brought puzzled and inquisitive looks from the monks. “Oh, right,” Dash went on. “You don’t know what the Archetype is. Well, you’ll see it soon enough, but the quick version of the story begins with a comet.”

  He went on to describe how he’d crashed onto one of the many icy little bodies making up the Pasture, the vast comet field that had been constructed by the Unseen. And how, on the brink of death, he’d stumbled onto the Archetype, which had allowed him to survive and escape what had seemed like a certain, lonely end.

  “So it was really just a freak chance that I found the Archetype at all,” he finished, and there was an expectant air between him and the monks, as if the story was only beginning. In a sense, it was.

  The monks exchanged looks, then all turned back to Dash with indulgent smiles. “You don’t really believe it was just chance, do you?” Kai asked.

  Dash sighed. “I know, you’re going to say it was meant to be, or fated to happen, because I was chosen, or something like that. I mean—I was a courier, and a good one, if you don’t count the last few runs, but I never saw myself as a cog in anything larger than my own fate.” He finally shrugged. “Like I said, I’m really just some guy who is trying to fill a space that’s meant for me, but not the man I once was.”

  Kai answered by touching Dash on the shoulder. “We all believe the things we believe. However, Dash, you need to leave yourself open to the possibility that there are greater truths out there that remain true regardless of whether we believe them or not. Your own fate, as you put it, is something larger than one man’s purpose. Your belief is, not to be cruel, irrelevant at this point, although your acceptance of Messenger status is a good start. The Enemy is vast, Dash. Bigger and more relentless than the tides of the stars themselves, and they fight here, in the dark, and in all the places we would seek solace from them. So when you say you accept being the Messenger, and that you are ready to fight, I am glad—but it’s not enough.”

  “What’s next, then?” Dash asked.

  “I am sorry to say, but you will see. And that’s something I would wish on no one, not even the Messenger.”

  The Slipwing started to smell.

  Her air processor had never been designed to handle thirteen people, so the various odors they gave off began to accumulate. It wasn’t too foul—yet—but Dash was glad the Forge was only a few hours away. Everyone on board was accumulating varying degrees of ripeness, with Conover living up to the old adage that teenaged boys have an aroma unto themselves.

  He found Amy and Viktor in the cockpit with Leira and mentioned it to them. Amy immediately nodded and said, “I know, right? It’s starting to smell like an old sock in here.”

  “Can we do anything about it?”

  “Open the windows,” Leira said.

  “Hah.” Dash mimed lifting a window. “Not sure we want to feel absolute zero, or anything close to it. Plus, the whole hard vacuum thing.”

  Amy pursed her lips in thought. “Maybe we could do something with the filters.”

  “Or if we could separate the chemicals that smell with some sort of discriminator,” Viktor said, “and then bleed them off.”

  “Yeah, but to where?” Amy replied.

  “Before you guys wander off into techie world, have you had a chance to look at those cores?” Dash said.

  Viktor nodded. “The level one looks pretty straightforward. Between our scans and Conover’s eyes, it seems pretty much the same as the other level one cores you already installed in the Archetype. That level two, though, is something else.” He glanced at Amy, and she nodded.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s really different. There are things going on inside it at the quantum level that we don’t even begin to understand. If we could replicate it, we’d be—”

  “Wealthy, like legendarily wealthy,” Dash said, nodding. “Yeah. And if we could replicate these cores, instead of having to go find them, it would make everything way easier. But I’m assuming we can’t replicate them, can we?”

  They both shook their heads. “Wouldn’t even know how to begin fabricating the parts,” Viktor said. “Hell, I don’t even know what the parts are.”

  “Okay. Well, we’ve got time, so it can’t hurt to maybe check with Kai, see what he and his people might know about it. They’ve been studying Unseen stuff all their lives. Who knows, maybe they’ll be able to tell us something useful.”

  Amy stayed with Leira in case she needed help, while Viktor followed Dash back into the hab.

  Kai and the other monks were jammed around the hab’s sole, central table, eating. Kai looked up from his synthesized stew when Dash asked what the monk knew about the core and said, “Not a great deal. I have contemplated it every day, for as long as I can remember, so I could probably draw it with perfect detail. But I’m afraid I have no other, specific insights to offer.”

  “In the writings of the Unseen we have deciphered there are references to the Orb, but they are given in contexts we never came to fully understand,” another monk, whose name Dash was pretty sure was Tyle, said. “For instance, one passage refers to the Orb as ‘the heart of the furnace.’” He and Kai both shrugged. “We were never able to figure out what that meant.”

  Dash looked at Viktor, who said, “Furnace as in Forge?”

  “Yeah,” Dash replied, nodding, then turning back to the monks. “I think you guys actually know more than you think you do. You might even know stuff that’s crucial, and you’ve done so without setting foot in the facility. Once we get back to the Forge, we’ll need to get Viktor and Amy to pick your brains.”

  “We’d be happy to do that now,” Kai said, but Dash shook his head.

  “Don’t know about you, but we’ve been running for a couple of days now on almost no sleep. I think everyone needs to take advantage of this downtime to get some rest, so we’re not a bunch of bleary-eyed sacks when we get back to the Forge. I’d really hate to be dragging my ass behind me when I have to go fight the Golden.”

  At the mention of the xenophobic aliens, the monks’ faces turned collectively hard. “We understand,” Kai said. “We’ll also use the time to rest, and for contemplation and meditation, so we’re ready to be at your side when battle is joined.”

  Dash wasn’t sure what eight guys with staves might be able to do to the Golden, no matter how kick-ass their martial skills might be. But it didn’t matter. Their unshakable devotion and absolute, unwavering courage gave him a rush of warm gratitude. Leira and the others were great, but the resolute monks were a real morale boost.

  Later, as Dash tried to find a place to get some rest of his own—almost every available sleeping-spot in the Slipwing already containing a warm body—he found Kai sitting cross-legged outside the engineering bay. He stopped, then started to slowly back away, not wanting to disturb the monk as he sat in what seemed like a deep trance. But Kai immediately opened his eyes and looked up.

  “Sorry, Kai. Didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “The Messenger cannot be a disturbance,” he said. “You may think of yourself as just some guy, but you have to appreciate that I have lived my entire life preparing to serve and assist you.”

  Dash cleared his throat. “I’ll have to adjust to my status as a demigod. I was told there would be robes.”

  “I’m sure there are,” Kai said, then gave a conspiratorial smile. “We’ll work on something purple, if it pleases my lord.” He laughed, and Dash joined him. “If it makes you feel better, we’re actually all really glad the Messenger turned out to be someone so down-to-earth. I think it might have been hard for us to get used to some awesome figure of divine
power.”

  Dash chuckled, but something caught his eye. Because of the way Kai sat, Dash could again see the odd little device he wore around his neck. “Hey, what is that? That pendant. It looks like tech, but I can’t make it out.”

  Kai looked down. “Oh, my. Some loyal servant of the Messenger I’ve turned out to be.” He pulled the thong holding the device from around his neck. “We believe this is a data module that was removed from a larger Unseen device—perhaps a computer—located in a chamber not far from the Orb. My father passed it to me, as did his father before him.” He offered it to Dash. “We have used it as a badge of office for the head of our Order, but based on the little we have been able to determine about it, we believe it is meant to be given to the Messenger.” He looked thoughtful. “I’d honestly forgotten about it in our fray.”

  Dash accepted the module. “Chaos has a way of erasing details.” He tucked it into his pocket, then yawned. “Anyway, I have to find a place to sleep. Busy day coming up—you know, saving the universe, trying on robes—”

  “In rich purple, of course.”

  “—in rich purple. Sleep well, friend,” Dash said.

  They both smiled, but both knew they did it out of habit. There was little to smile about as they streaked through the darkness to an ancient enemy.

  But at least they would not face it alone.

  17

  As the Slipwing dropped back into real space near the Forge, Dash braced himself. A full three days had elapsed since they’d left. Actually, a little more, and he fully expected to find a swarm of Golden drones and ships surrounding the station, with a desperate rush and fight just to get aboard and into the Archetype.

  But the Forge hung majestically against the restless, swirling backdrop of the gas giant, and that was it. Silent, implacable, and solid, there was the Forge, waiting faithfully for their return.

  He eased out a breath with relief. “Well, looks like all hell hasn’t broken loose quite yet.”

  Viktor, studying the scanner, nodded. “I’m sensing nothing except the Forge itself. Mind you, we couldn’t detect some of the Forge’s missiles, remember. We should assume the Golden are able to stealth things up the same way.”

  “Good point,” Dash said. “Custodian?”

  “I am here.” Because he’d said the name out loud, the smooth, baritone voice of Custodian emerged from the comm, rather that inside Dash’s head through the Meld.

  “Any sign of the Golden yet?”

  “None. Your ship is the first to have arrived in the system since you left.”

  “That’s good,” Leira said, tapping in a slight adjustment to their course, “but I can’t help thinking about those Fangrats again.” She glanced at Dash. “It’s just too damned quiet.”

  “So that is the Forge you have mentioned?” Kai said, craning his neck, trying to see around Amy and Conover, both of whom were jammed into the back of the cockpit. “It is—magnificent, I’m afraid, falls far short of what I want to say, but it’s all I can think of.”

  “Agreed,” Dash replied. “Behold the Forge, in all its alien glory.”

  “It looks as big as a planet.”

  “Actually, a moon. That’s how the Unseen kept it hidden, in fact. Inside a moon.”

  “How did they do this?”

  Dash shook his head. “Sorry, no time to tell all our war stories, Kai. That’ll have to wait. Right now, we have to start thinking about—”

  But the Custodian interrupted Dash, in turn. “The situation has changed. Another object has entered real space and is now accelerating toward the Forge at alien velocities.”

  Dash glanced at Viktor, who nodded. “We’re not getting very good resolution, but there’s something inbound.” He gave Dash a worried look. “Something big.”

  Dash shifted his attention back to the Custodian. “Any idea what it is?”

  It was Sentinel who answered. “It is called the Harbinger. The Creators became aware of its existence but had never actually encountered it by the time the last conflict ended.”

  “Is this the Enemy?” Kai asked.

  Dash nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

  “Can we see it?” Conover asked. “See some data on it, so we can maybe start developing a strategy to deal with it?”

  The scanner lit up with a data-stream from the Forge.

  For a long moment there was silence, as everyone just stared. Amy finally broke it.

  “Okay. That’s really something.”

  A bit of an understatement, Dash thought, but he understood. The Harbinger challenged their senses in the same way the Forge did.

  The image showed a mech—smaller than the Archetype, more slender and delicate-looking, but still radiating a sense of power and menace. As they watched, it abruptly twisted and shimmered, then faded from view.

  “What happened to it?” Leira asked.

  “It appears to be able to distort space around it,” Sentinel said. “Likely by translating partly into the Dark Between.”

  Dash squeezed the edge of the scanner console. “Shit. Can we still track it?”

  “I am able to maintain a general sense of its location, based on the gravitational distortion it leaves in real space.”

  “Kind of like your Fade,” Viktor said, referring to the Slipwing’s ability to do something similar, but nowhere near as efficiently.

  Dash nodded, then asked, “Okay, so how long do we have until it reaches the Forge?”

  “I would estimate between one and two hours,” Custodian replied.

  Leira looked up from the helm controls, her expression tight. “It’s going to take us at least that long to reach the Forge.”

  Dash looked at the nav, his mind racing. Leira was right. Unlike the tech of Unseen and the Golden, the Slipwing couldn’t readily dodge the simple facts of physics. They could accelerate as much as they wanted, but they had to decelerate just as much to be able to get aboard the Forge and not just go racing past it. And they had to do it with enough time to get the power cores installed, and the Archetype launched, before the Harbinger arrived.

  Worse, the Slipwing only had so much fuel to burn as she sped up, then slowed down again, which meant Leira’s estimate was the best possible time they could make. What they needed was a way to rev the Slipwing up to a much higher speed, then figure out some way to slow her back down again, with the fuel they had.

  While the others frantically shot suggestions back and forth, Dash pored over the system chart depicted on the nav. If only there was a way to slow down without burning fuel.

  Wait.

  He pushed in beside Leira. “I have an idea.” Leaning past her, he tapped away at the nav, devising a new course for the Slipwing. When Leira saw it, she turned and gave him a horrified stare.

  “Are you insane?”

  “Maybe,” Dash said. “But maybe insane is all that’s going to work.”

  “I can’t believe that we’re going to do this again,” Conover said.

  There were a few nods, but tense silence enveloped the cockpit. The gas giant now filled the field of view, the misty veil of its upper atmosphere a blur beneath the Slipwing. Dash had finally cut the fusion drive, and now the ship plunged toward the first wisps of cloud at a speed that almost made his eyes water. He touched the helm controls, gently nudging them through minute course adjustments, some of which came from the nav as it refined its calculations—and some of which just came from Dash’s gut.

  “We should be contacting the atmosphere in about thirty seconds,” Leira said from the co-pilot’s station. She’d handed the Slipwing back over to Dash at his insistence, because this insanity was his idea, so it was his to make work.

  “Just to be clear, you have actually done this before, right?” Amy said.

  “I’ve done aerobraking before, sure,” Dash said. “Never quite this fast, though.” He studiously avoided Amy’s gaze.

  The concept was simple. The easy way to get to the Forge was to burn hard, accelerating as much as possib
le until they were halfway, then flip around and burn just as hard to slow back down. But they didn’t have the time for the easy way. So, instead, Dash would burn the drive even harder, and for longer, getting the ship up to a ferocious speed. He’d then ease her into the upper reaches of the gas giant’s atmosphere and let friction with the tenuous gases bleed away her velocity, until she matched the orbital characteristics of the Forge.

  It was the difference between reaching the Forge before the Golden Harbinger got within what Sentinel estimated was its probable threat range, or having to actually run the terrifying gauntlet of the far superior alien mech while just trying to get aboard the station. As a bonus, it would only expend about half of the Slipwing’s remaining fuel.

  But there was always a price. All that kinetic energy had to go somewhere. So even though the ship would only brush through the atmosphere’s uppermost fringe, the friction would still turn the Slipwing into a howling inferno as the drag slowed her down. Her shields, which would take the brunt of the searing heat, would be her only protection from being incinerated.

  Hopefully, it would be enough.

  “Ten seconds,” Leira said. As soon as she did, a tremor rattled the ship. Dash glanced at her and she shrugged. “Or thereabouts. It’s hard to predict when—”

  Another tremor, more violent, cut her off.

  And then the panoramic expanse of the gas giant vanished, lost behind a brightening curtain of glowing plasma.

  “We’re in,” Viktor called from the station behind Dash. “The hull temperature’s already six hundred Celsius, and it’s going up fast.”

  “You really don’t want to exceed fourteen hundred or so, Dash,” Amy said.

  “It’s going to be just fine,” Dash said, his eyes locked on the helm. “But I hear you. No more than sixteen hundred.”